Arts Thread

I’m Simone De Vivo, a Rome-born, Sweden-based designer and researcher. Through design research, co-design and public engagement, I help organisations work more closely with the people they serve and turn that collaboration into meaningful change. My work spans services, communication, learning experiences and public-facing environments, often bringing together communities, organisations and institutions around shared challenges.Much of my practice focuses on designing with people who are often overlooked in decision-making processes, particularly people with visual impairments and the organisations that support them. Working alongside communities, organisations and businesses, I use workshops, collaborative research and prototyping to translate lived experience into practical interventions, new forms of knowledge and lasting organisational capacity. Accessibility, participation and inclusion are recurring themes in my work, not as specialist topics, but as ways of rethinking how people encounter services, spaces and each other.Food is a recurring material and method in my practice. Through shared meals, hospitality settings and sensory workshops, I use food as a way to facilitate dialogue, build relationships and explore how inclusion is experienced in everyday life. This approach informs projects across culture, education, accessibility and organisational change, with a particular interest in how design can contribute to social regeneration.I hold a BFA in Design + Change from Linnaeus University and an MFA in Embedded Design from HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg. Alongside my design practice, I lecture, facilitate workshops and develop educational resources that help inclusive design become everyday practice.